Sunday, November 18, 2012

What did all that money buy? An argument for campaign finance reform

This
election cycle was the most expensive in history. Candidates, Super Pacs, and political parties
spent around $6 billion on federal,
state, and local elections. The Obama
and Romney campaigns spent a little under $2 billion dollars combined. In the post-Citizen’s United era the
media-political industrial complex flourishes like never before. A majority of the spending bought TV ad space,
especially in the swing states. I spent
one weekend down in Miami and I saw political ads every commercial break. 300,000+ ads aired in Ohio alone. And yet what did all this money by?

Sheldon
Adelson, the godfather of Newt Gingrich’s campaign and single largest donor in
the 2012 election, spent over $50 million.
And what does he have to show for it?
Every candidate he backed at the state level lost, except one (I believe
he lost 9/10) and Sheldon contributed $20 million to the failed primary
campaign of Newt. Too many $50 million
is more than we will make over many lifetimes, but it is pocket change to
Sheldon. He stated he would spend over
$100 million to defeat President Obama, so by his standards he went cheap this
election cycle.

Karl Rove
was another grand spender of this election cycle. He planned to defeat President Obama and win
back the Senate for Republicans via Crossroads GPS and American
Crossroads. These groups spent over $300
million combined! And once again I ask,
what do they have to show for it?
Democrats actually gained
seats in the Senate and by any metric Karl Rove, Crossroads GPS, and American
Crossroads were failures.

So what did
we learn from this election? Money
cannot buy victories? The consequences
of Citizen’s United and unlimited political contributions by corporations and
unions were overstated? Some people are
making that exact argument; that this election cycle shows we don’t have to
worry about campaign finance reform and political spending.

However, if
this election has shown anything, it is that individuals and corporations will
spend exponentially large amounts of money to help the candidates they support. And it just so happens that the
most fervent contributors also possess the most extreme views. As Democrats and Republicans have moved
to the radical left and right, the last thing we need are more extreme candidates.

Today it is
way too easy for a Karl Rove or a Sheldon Adelson to fund a
campaign against a candidate he does not agree with; or for Grover Norquist and American’s for Tax
Reform to fund a challenger to a Republican Congressman who did not sign the
Taxpayer Protection Pledge to not raise taxes - under any circumstances!

These are
not the candidates America needs. We
need more moderate, bipartisan candidates, and not for far
left / far right candidates who refuse to compromise. And we need 3rd party
candidates who have real chances at winning elections. So until I start to see billions of dollars
spent on independent campaigns, I will argue against Citizen’s United and for
campaign finance reform.

The real
loser’s in the post Citizen’s United era are the American people because more
political spending leads to more extreme candidates, which leads to less
compromise and governance, which leads to more cynicism and punditry in the media,
which leads to more political spending by radical individuals.